Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer.
[Transcriber's note: This book consists of the
main text and a supplement ('Notes') which not only contains explanations
on the background of some stories, but also explains less frequent
words (mostly in Greek). These refer to pages (and lines)
of the main text. Therefore, the page numbers have been inserted
by labels like '[Page x]' in the main text.
In the notes, refence is generally made to the first word of each note
or the first part (separated by '·') which is printed bold in
the text. To avoid distraction by too much formatting,
they have only in a few exceptional cases marked by underscores
where the referenced words are not obvious.
Very few typos have also been marked,
cf. notes in the text starting with 'typo'.
]
LUCIAN'S DIALOGUES
PREPARED FOR SCHOOLS
WITH SHORT NOTES IN GREEK
BY W. H. D. ROUSE, M.A., LITT.D.
HEAD MASTER OF PERSE GRAMMAR SCHOOL
CAMBRIDGE
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1909
PREFACE
This book contains most of Lucian's _Dialogues_,
prepared for school use by certain omissions and
changes. The syntax has been changed where it
did not accord with the normal Attic (mostly in
the use of ἄν and a few particles), and rare or poetical
words have sometimes been simplified. The style,
however, is much what it was. It would not be
possible to make the style agree with the best Attic
without a good deal of new writing; and, although the
style of Lucian is more cumbrous than Plato's, yet
this very fault gives scope for paraphrase as a simpler
style would not do. We shall see later how this
comes into the question. It is a great comfort that
the readers will forget most of the words and forms
used, unless the master takes pains to fix them in the
memory; in such cases he may fix the simpler paraphrase,
leaving the verbiage to take care of itself. If
the pupils, after reading the book, can express the
meaning of any passage in simpler words, they will
understand the meaning, which is the essential thing;
and if at the same time they are able to recognize
and understand certain long or ugly phrases, that
will do them no harm. They will not be tempted to
use these phrases rather than the simpler and easier
phrases.
Moreover, such disadvantages as there are in
Lucian's style are many times outweighed by the
lively interest that he inspires. I have found the _Dialogues_,
as far as substance goes, an almost perfect book
for a first author. Many of them are short enough
for one lesson; all are full of wit, and such wit as
the boy's mind can enjoy. They also teach, or cause
to be learnt, a good deal of mythology; and, since
the humorous aspect of Olympus is natural to the
Greek from Homer onwards, the reader will not get
a false or unhistorical impression. He is not yet
ready to understand the serious side of Greek
religion, which will be impressed on him when
he comes to read Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Plato.
Moreover, the boy who leaves school after one
year of Greek will carry with him from Lucian
a pleasant memory such as is not given by Greek
grammars and exercise-books. If he gives a second
year to the study of Greek, he will have read some
Homer or Herodotus, and Plato's _Apology_ or some
other prose work of value.
The notes are in Greek. They are meant to be
used in a way shortly to be described; but any
master who prefers to put them at once into the hands
of his class will still find them useful. The boy is
in that case given a choice of two things: either he
may read them, in which case some of his difficulties
are solved, but he has to read more Greek in order
to solve them; or he may look up the words and
names in his dictionary, in which case he has the
practice of looking them up. In neither case will
he get his information without doing something
for it. Many teachers believe that looking up words
in a dictionary is good for the learner; these also
will be able to use this book. It may not be out of
place, however, to ask those who believe this whether
they have any reason for their belief. I do not
know that any one has made any systematic inquiry
into the use of the dictionary, to find out how long it
takes beginners to look up words and what their
minds are doing while they are looking them up.
I cannot pretend to have done this systematically;
but the few inquiries we have made in this school, go
to show that to look up words takes a very long time
for the beginner, even when he has not a dictionary
with many meanings to the word, but a special vocabulary
with only one or two meanings. It certainly distracts
his attention, and he has to resume the thread
of his thought before he can fit in his new word, which
also takes time. My own state of mind in looking up
new words is quite clear to me: it is a blank, out of
which emerges now a word expressive of exasperation,
now the address of a friend forgotten and puzzled over,
or other flotsam of the subconsciousness. If it were so
that all this time the new word should be impressing
itself on the memory, well and good; but it does not
seem to be so, and if not, here is another of the
time-wasting devices which have become sacred in
schools.